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Actually, Macnamara and the other "whiz kids" got that name during the "Big Show", when they were coddled as part of a hothouse set up by Bernard Baruch to be staff hey-boys for Franklin Roosevelt's "brain trust". During the war, they were given various policymaking jobs. John Kenneth Galbraith got to be FDR's wage-and-price czar, e.g.: he was the guy in charge of the wage hold-down during the war that saw inflation jump 25% in 1946 as soon as the controls were taken off. I don't recall what Macnamara was doing, but he and the Bundy Brothers had jobs, and some of their creche-siblings went off to the OSS: William F. Buckley Jr., for example. They were all spoiled rotten (says me), and it showed later in life, too.

Macnamara's Ford "triumph" was the Edsel. I thought it was a nice-looking car, but it flopped. Basically, there wasn't room in the market between Ford's Fairlane 500 and the Mercury line.......and I also was told at the time that the Edsel had a Freudian front end design that didn't connote masculinity as well as it might (harrumph!). The model was withdrawn after the 1960 model year. Its "seagull" tail fins were echoed in the 1959 and 1960 Chevy and the 1960 Ford. Macnamara was also the originator of the idea for the TFX, which flopped as a joint Navy/Air Force light bomber but survived and had a decent career as the F-111 "Aardvark", which is still in service with Australia.

I don't recall what Macnamara was doing---

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McNamara was an instructor in statistics. Period. In his book he tries to say his life was in danger during his duty for his country because a plane similar to one he occasionally traveled on crashed in Spain.